World of Warcraft became an instant success when it was launched in November 2004 and currently has more than half the market of the MMORPG genre with over 7.5 million players worldwide.Up to 40 players, usually all in the same guild, have to strategize to find a way to defeat a particular high-end boss mob.World of Warcraft even has its own economy where items are bought and sold in Auction Houses. These items are valuable to players, so some people pay a lot of in-game money or gold for them. Players have taken this economy into the real world by selling gold to other players for real currency and some people even sell whole WoW accounts.Along with a character's level, the gear he or she is wearing and using is a sort of status symbol. Lower level players stare in awe at a maximum level character decked out in dazzling suits of armor. Armor and other items are found on mobs, given out in quests or obtained in a group or raid instance.The way you play World of Warcraft or WoW, is you create a character either on the Alliance or Horde faction, which are enemies.

Once your character is introduced into the world of Azeroth (the name of the game world) you gain experience and levels by killing mobs (non-player character enemies) and completing quests. Quests can be aquired from various sources, such as NPCs or by finding certain items. Quests usually give a nice amount of experience and often useful items so leveling is faster if you do quests as much as you can.Items and armor are major parts of playing WoW. You choose your race and class in typical RPG style, such as a gnomish magician or undead warlock.Instances, for example, which are places where players enter their own private dungeon, often require a group or even a raid.Raiding is where things get really exciting. Some instances require many players to crawl through and clear out and have boss mobs that are impossible to kill by one player.